The Colebrookdale Railroad — the Secret Valley Line — was a branch of the Reading Railroad in the mid-1900s. After the shrinkage of railroading it passed to Conrail and then moved toward abandonment. Berks County intervened, and now the line is making a bit of a comeback with tourist excursions between Boyertown and Pottstown, as well as some freight traffic to interchange with the Norfolk-Southern at Pottstown. N-S roughly parallels the Schuylkill River on what was once the Reading RR mainline between Reading and Philadelphia.

A quick visit to the Boyertown terminus on 15 August 2015 as part of Ye Olde Photographer's participation in Argus Day disclosed quite a few targets for a camera, including the 1880s vintage crane in a former freight yard and also an 0-6-0T steam switching locomotive that has been acquired with the intent of restoring it to operation. The crane is a product of Phoenix Iron Company, located in the Schuylkill River Valley town of Phoenixville. YOP photographed it before in a deliciously rich state of textured rust. It has since been de-rusted and painted up as though it just rolled out of the factory. The Argus Day visit, on "Argust 15th," was with a 1957 vintage Argus C-3 and shooting Kodak Panatomic-X with an expiration date of December 1988!

Having resolved to come back with other gear, YOP returned in early October 2015 with his Bronica SQ-A, several lenses and a fistfull of Fuji Acros 100. The steam locomotive was still accessible, so quite a few frames were expended on that, some more or less straight documentary, some more abstract. YOP finished off the day by traveling southward and taking some shots of a fairly high wood timber supported trestle on the line, one of a diverse assortment of bridges.